


Unexpected Feelings

by StevetheIcecube



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Spoilers, Torna Tuesday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 09:39:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16553372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StevetheIcecube/pseuds/StevetheIcecube
Summary: Patroka wasn't expecting to stay with Torna - she wasn't the sentimental type. Her first encounter with another inhabitant of the ship does little to change her mind.





	Unexpected Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> Another late Torna Tuesday RIP.

When he woke up again, the ship they had been brought onto was better lit. Patroka wasn’t sure why she was surprised by this, or why she even cared; they were just going to leave once they were back on their feet, after all. Once Indol weren’t looking anymore, they’d go. Or maybe it would just be her. She didn’t know and she definitely didn’t care.

As she wandered through the corridors, trying to shake something (she didn’t know what) from her mind, it was clear that people lived here. There were signs of things that had been picked up and dropped, scuffs in the walls, a dent here and there (which begged the question as to what could dent metal like this). It was somewhere that people lived and that felt almost...strange. Jin had told her that there were other people in the ship, but he said she’d meet them ‘in time’.

Patroka wasn’t sure what these other people were likely to be like. Blades, obviously. Probably entirely flesh eaters. How many flesh eaters even were there? The Indoline pursuit of them told her that there were probably a fair few, enough of them to see them as a threat. But how many of them were safe here? And if there were lots of them, were they even safe?

She sighed. Now was a good time to go looking for the answers to some of her questions, whether she could find a person to answer them or not. So she kept wandering, knowing that she wasn’t remembering where she was going. She’d have a job finding her way back later, but this ship couldn’t be that big. She’d find her way back eventually if she just kept looking, and if not she’d find someone who could lend a hand.

“...can’t surface for a while.” Patroka turned her head quickly to try and work out where the sound was coming from. The room over there - Jin was talking to someone. “Is that going to be a problem?” The person in the room with him didn’t respond verbally.

Now, Patroka did not have any shame in eavesdropping. She had made her mark on this world by getting what she needed in any way possible. But other people knowing she was eavesdropping was another matter. How could she drop into this conversation in a way that seemed natural?

Ah, fuck it. She was allowed to hear things while walking around. It had just sounded like a status update anyway. Not really thinking about it, she walked into the room. “And here one of them is,” Jin said, speaking to...the teenager standing next to him. “This is Patroka.”

“You have a kid here?” She asked. She had never been one for beating around the bush and she wasn’t about to start just because Jin had rescued them from almost certain death. The kid in question glared at her.

“Mikhail isn’t a child,” Jin said. Patroka raised an eyebrow at him. That kid couldn’t be more than fifteen. “It’s a complicated story that I’m not at liberty to share. The same way I haven’t told Mikhail the circumstances I picked you up in.”

The kid looked at her again, a very pointed expression in his eyes, but he still didn’t say anything. “Something caught your tongue?” 

The look on his face in that moment was...something. Not exactly hatred, but close. He was blushing. He winked at her, waved to Jin, and left the room. She didn’t bother suppressing the slightly disgusted sound in reaction to him. “What’s his problem?” She demanded.

“For one, I imagine he’s still standing outside the door.” There was no sound, but after several seconds had ticked past, Jin spoke again. “Mikhail has his own story. Different to yours, but equally private. Equally full of unfair suffering. But one thing is he’s not a child.”

“You say that, but is that just a convenient excuse for roping kids into your conflict?” Patroka wasn’t quite sure why she was so bothered by this. If Jin was using a kid, what bearing did that have on her? But at the same time she...objected to that.

“Mikhail is not a child,” Jin repeated. “He doesn’t speak much, and maybe that’s given you the wrong impression, but I’ve known him for thirty years.” Patroka frowned. From appearances, he was just a regular child. But from what Jin had said...he had to be a blade. But he didn’t seem like a blade.

“Guess it’s just something I’ll have to find out,” she said. “Presuming I end up sticking around. I’m just here so Akhos doesn’t end up stuck here because he can’t do anything without me.”

“Of course,” Jin said. Patroka wasn’t a fan of the slightly doubting note in his voice but she wasn’t going to question it. She didn’t want to get into that conversation. Not because she had feelings about it or anything, she just didn’t want Akhos hearing something that might hurt him. “Mikhail is a friendly guy.”

“He sure didn’t seem like it,” Patroka said, but honestly she was inclined to believe Jin. He’d been trustworthy so far. He’d helped them. Most people loved Amalthus, and he didn’t; he was probably a fairly decent judge of character.

“Perhaps you’d get along better with our other member,” Jin noted. “He’s a lot louder and blunter.”

“What are you saying about me?” She demanded. Jin sort of laughed, in the exhausted way that Patroka only recognised as a laugh because she’d felt the same way so many times.

“Only that I think you’d get along better with a man you can have a conversation with without a lot of patience,” Jin said, and that didn’t change the annoyance she felt about his insinuations at all.

Turned out that Patroka didn’t get on with Malos much better than she got on with Mikhail, actually. They butted heads a bit, if she was being honest. He was loud, obnoxious, and angry, and she was the same. But somewhere along the line she decided, unconsciously, that she just wasn’t going to leave.

Maybe it was the favour Jin had done them by taking them in, or the fact that Akhos was really fond of Mikhail for some reason (he claimed they’d had a fascinating discussion - Patroka still hadn’t heard him speak more than a single word). Maybe it was because Jin was really good at cooking, or that being down here in this ship meant she never had to interact with any humans.

But Patroka didn’t think it was any of those things. She wasn’t a sap (at least, she tried not to be), and she didn’t let sentimentality about her past with Akhos get in the way of what she decided about things. It was...something else. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. But she knew she had to stay. Something would happen if she stayed here. Something good. And she definitely needed something good to happen for once in her life.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, please consider leaving a comment :) it really helps motivate me to write.


End file.
